Yesterday my five yo son changed his yellow shirt before going to school because G was going to call him “Spongebob”. The sadness in his voice about broke my heart. Tonight I talked to him about name-calling and tried to impress upon him the importance of having of his own opinion about himself and being confident, geared for a 5 yo, of course. It seems that G is fond of calling my son, and no one else, names (according to my son, and I’m not sure that this is the case, btw). The names are all pretty harmless, at least in an adult way, but to my 5 yo they seem a little harsh. And this is part of my great fear of the kids growing up. They have to face the world, I can’t protect them from it, they have to deal with it and it’s already started.
The worst of it is that dealing with situations like this, and what these situtations will turn into as he grows older, requires self-confidence and assertiveness, two traits that I need help with myself. So, what, exactly, do you say and do to help your child grow to be self confident and assured?
I tell my son ( 1st grader) that if someone calls you a name it is because they feel bad about themselves and want other people to feel just like them. They are verbal bullies. Don’t let them. You are in charge of your own happiness and never lose sight of who you are and what you are good at.
And to always use words to defend yourself. “You hurt my feelings.” “It isn’t nice calling names.”
I’m not too worried about it. He will be a big gallut when he is older and strong as an Ox. He already is. If some kid gives him ca-ca now, down the road, that kid will be worried. He takes after his father and is 100% Switzerland. Mr. Neutrality. (Except with his sister. Then they are Israel & Palestine. Daily. Wheeeeee!)
However, the real one to worry about is my daughter. She’ll tell the bully off and then run to the teacher with her hypnotic light brown eyes all boo-booey that the teacher just can’t resist and get that kid in a big pile of doo-doo. ::::::snifff:::: I promise to use her power for good, not evil. really.
One thing to keep in mind about school is this: School teaches the kids not the elementary things in life so much, but how to work with and within the herd.
This kind of thing has come up with my middle one a couple of times. I always told her to start by telling the other kid, in no uncertain terms, to stop. I told her to make sure she used a strong voice, but not to whine or sound hurt, and not to yell, because she didn’t want the other kid to know the teasing was getting to her. Just say firmly, “Stop that. I don’t like it.” Sometimes kids find a target that looks vulnerable. I also told her the next step was probably to find some funny way to comment back about it. If the teasing wasn’t having the desired effect, maybe it would stop.
But I did make sure she knew it might not stop. Some people need to help themselves by hurting others. And I told her if it didn’t stop she should make sure to tell an adult. Again, not whining, not tattling, just letting someone in authority know about the situation. It really doesn’t do the other kid any good to let him think he can keep doing those things with impunity.
When she was in sixth grade one of the boys spent about a week picking on her best friend. Teasing and calling her names, and getting in her face in gym class, nothing too awful, but pretty relentless. And the friend broke down in tears every time. When my daughter tried, first to comfort, then to help, and told her that he was only doing it because he was getting such a satisfactory reaction, the friend responded, “Yeah, but your mom taught you how to give back snappy comments. My mom never did that.” When I asked my daughter why the boy had started on this girl, she said it was because friend was the only other girl in the class who hadn’t gone out with him. I reminded her that she hadn’t, either, and she said, “But he knows better than to try anything on me.”
I think the fact that she knew she could deal with such things made her that much safer from them.
I am the proud owner of a chubby, geeky chap. I have no illusions. He will never be one of the cool kids. He does have a very good, very loyal group of mates but he’s a geek.
The thought of bullying has been on my mind lately (he’s in his first year of high school and he mentioned that someone in his class had been hassled) I learnt a valuable lesson.
I tiptoed around the “do people in your class hassle people” subject for a while, not wanting to ask if he had been hassled. He finaly said “Mum! Bullies only hassle people who care about it”
I have no idea how this child with really good self esteem sprang from me…but he is right. Igoring bullies is the fastest way to defuse them. They do it to get a reaction. No reaction=no fun.
I know that is a hard thing to get across to a kid but the best reaction to a bully is NO reaction. That means no “whatever”, no rolling eyes, no crying…shit that now sounds impossible!
I was teased mercilessly in school, and called all kinds of names - nothing too serious, but that didn’t make me feel any better at the time. It was hard for me, and I never knew how to deal with it.
One day, some kid said something to me, trying to yank my chain. I can’t remember what he said, but I do remember finding it rather funny, even if it was directed at me. I actually laughed, and he looked completely surprised. From then on, whenever someone bugged me, I would just laugh in amusement. In very short time, the teasing ceased pretty much completely.
I was quite a bit older when I figured this out. I am not sure whether you could teach a 5 year old this approach. But it definitely is true that not getting upset by it completely takes the wind out of their sails and destroys the fun for them.
Middle school is what worries me. I hear horror stories about it from co-workers, that’s why I want to try to help build his self-confidence up now, prepare for the onslaught, as it were. I’ve met the kid in question here, and I don’t think there’s anything malicious about it, he just thinks it’s fun. But the effect on my kid causes me a bit of worry, but then I worry about things. Thanks for the stores and advice.
One time in 7th-grade geography class we were drawing maps. A kid came back up the aisle from sharpening his pencil and as he passed, he said to me, “Wow, that’s a really ugly map you’re drawing there” (obviously trying to get a reaction – he was usually a big jerk). I usually crumbled at this sort of thing, but for some reason, that day I responded with, “Thank you!” He was just so flummoxed that he shut up and sat down.
Then again, as five-year-old I once broke into tears because some older kid (playfully) called my “Curly-Q” because of my curly hair. Any sort of name calling consisting of simply making repeated meaningless rhymes of my name, first or last, was also good for tears. I was a wimp, and my mother did zip to help me. But I’m not bitter. :dubious:
Don’t call me a name now, though, or I’ll kick your ass!
I started this with my kids very early. Almost daily one of the 3 would come running up to me, sobbing/whining about their sibling caling the names. THe conversation would go like this:
Sobber/whiner: “So and So just called me a such and such!” My invariable answer: “Well, are you?” Sobber/whiner: “uhm…no.” My invariable answer: “Then why does it bother you? You know that’s the response they’re going for.” Sobber/whiner: “oh…yeah”
We live in the city, however, we have a decent sized backyard–big enough so that Hallboy–who is almost 11–can have a portable basketball hoop where he can spend some time with friends shooting hoops. As a result, it’s become a kid magnet. I’ve seen kids in the back yard that, for the past 7 years, I haven’t ever seen before. I pretty much leave them all alone, knowing that if they’re in my back yard shooting hoops, then they’re not graffetting the neighbors garage, or smashing a window somewhere, or even out on the street corner being a watch for a drug dealer. (Yeah, that type of thing happens.)
I don’t want the kids in the back yard though unless we are home and Hallboy is out there. (There’s a park three blocks over where they can hang out if necessary.) This is partly because I don’t trust them and would rather not have a kid throw a rock (or bottle, or whatever) through my kitchen window and break into my house. It’s a possibility with a group of 10 or so prepubscent boys hanging out. Anyway, the other night I called in Hallboy for dinner, and everyone went home. About an hour later (it was slightly dark outside), Hallboy took out the trash when he was approached by one of the kids (but not one of the ‘regulars’) to see if they could play basket ball.
“My mom says I can’t come out anymore tonight, and that no one can play in the yard unless I’m out,” Hallboy said. --I was in the kitchen, and the backdoor was open, so I could hear the exchange.
The kid’s reply? “Fuck you, yo’ white bastard.” :eek: Hallboy just turned around and came back in the house. “I won’t be playing with him anymore,” he said.
There’s not much I can say to things like that. I wanted to rip the kid a new one, but I didn’t want to set an example with my son by badmouthing the kid, so I kept my mouth shut, and only told Hallboy that he’d done the right thing. He followed the rules, conveyed them politely, and didn’t retaliate with something nasty or foul when he was met with a nasty, foul response.
Time magazine just had an article saying that bullying – and this included name-calling – was more harmful to kids than previously thought. However, it was maddeningly vague about how harmful it was, and how they judged that.
At any rate, the article noted that most school policies cover dogged harrassment and physical bullying, but not name-calling. So students were pretty much on their own when it came to dealing with it. Researchers in the field didn’t think that the “sticks-and-stones” approach really worked (although clearly that has helped some kids, judging by this thread).
One interesting thing they found (again, it was vague) is that witnessing bullying was pretty upsetting to other children, even if they weren’t the target of it. Thus, it’s not just an issue for the victim.
I know some parents would roll their eyes and say it’s not harmful, it’s part of growing up, kids have to suck it up and be tough, we’re raising a crop of overprotected babies, yadda yadda, but name-calling worries me. I think it should be addressed by whatever adult hears it.
A group of kids started bullying me when I was quite young. I got the leader and kicked seven colours of shit out of him, I received quite a beating as well but let it be known that I didn’t care how much I got hurt once they got something back. The reputation I gained from that one fight basically followed me for all my school life and nobody really gave me any crap after that. The fact that I grew fast and was a big fucker by 15 didn’t hurt either.
I worry about this a lot because my daughter is in Special Ed. She has very limited vocabulary skills, and also probably wouldn’t know it if kids were making fun of her. But the idea of anyone picking on her because of her disabilty worries me.
So far, so good, though. She’s in third grade and the kids in the school have been very very kind to her. In fact, I can’t get over it. I am proud of them, because they have obviously been taught not to be mean to kids like my daughter.
On the other hand, they aren’t above sharing their bad language with her. hee hee. I’ve heard some things out of her mouth that could only have come from school. :eek:
I just keep my eyes and ears peeled when I go to drop her off and pick her up, and I ask her teachers and other people at the school to keep their eyes open for that sort of thing. If it ever happens, and I’m sure it will eventually, I won’t think twice about talking to the kid’s parents.
But, for “normal” kids, a little name-calling is normal. I can’t think of anyone who didn’t get teased for something. As long as that’s all that’s going on and not full-on bullying, I wouldn’t be too worried.
Heh. That reminds me of the time in back in middle school, when this puny punk started givin’ me some lip. So I slugged him in the face. He actually started crying. I never got any crap from that day forth, and his social standing was severely lowered. Not that I recomend physical retaliation, but that was a response that definitely worked out in my favor. Now, I just use my razor sharp mind, and whiplike tongue.
